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Singapore-based Innoform takes 'Law' into own hands

Goes production route with Neo film

Innoform Media general manager Teck Lim is moving Singapore's leading kids video distributor into feature film production with director Jack Neo's "Just Follow Law," which sold to Golden Harvest for Hong Kong and Taiwan at the American Film Market.

Lim joined Innoform in June after six years in Asian film distribution for the Shaw Organization in Singapore and he's been busy ever since, buying 60 titles and setting out a goal of making five feature films over the next two years.

"I think it's sad that Asian films are losing market share in Singapore," said Lim, bemoaning attention paid to Hollywood fare at the boxoffice there. "Making films of our own is part of my motivation."

Lim would not reveal terms of the sale to Golden Harvest but added that Neo's comedy also sold to Golden Screen in Brunei and Golden Village in Singapore.

Next week, Innoform will begin to release theatrically eight to 10 of the 40 movies it bought from Thailand's Sahamongkol, starting with the horror film "Colic." He added that most titles Innoform bought will go straight to video.

Other recent acquisitions include Feng Xiaogang's "The Banquet," from Shaw in Hong Kong; "The Host," from South Korea's Festive; and "Silk," from Taiwan's CMC Entertainment.Innoform will release "Just Follow Law," starring Fann Wong and Gurmit Singh and made for $1.2 million Singapore dollars ($767,459), in Singapore this February. Neo's 1998 feature "Money No Enough" is Singapore's highest-grossing film to date at $5.8 million Singapore dollars ($3.7 million).

Innoform next will co-produce "Men in White," a comedy from Kelvin Tong ("The Maid"), budgeted at $500,000, in which Innoform has a 50% stake with the director's Buko Films."At Shaw, I never got to distribute Kelvin, so it's great to now be working with him from the beginning of a project," Lim said, adding that Innoform was running a talent contest to help cast the film.

With 60 employees and offices in Kuala Lumpur and Hong Kong, Innoform, which brought U.S. hit series "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation" to Singapore TV, is a subsidiary of PSC Corp., a leading consumer goods store chain.